Innovation News

Washington, DC ― The White House is set to launch a new national program Friday to study microbiomes found on the human body and across different ecosystems, following calls from scientists to unlock the secrets of the microbes that have a big impact on people’s health and the environment, reports David Nather on STAT News.

The new National Microbiome Initiative will start with a federal investment of $121 million in funding from several agencies and will include private support from more than 100 outside organizations, including $100 million over four years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to a White House fact sheet that was posted online on Thursday.

The new initiative is the latest in a series of Obama administration programs to advance medical science.

It has already launched the Precision Medicine Initiative, which is trying to accelerate research into treatments tailored to individual patients; the BRAIN Initiative, the project to map the human brain; and Vice President Joe Biden’s cancer research effort, which is now getting underway.

​Nather reports that the National Microbiome Initiative will have three main goals: to support research, to create new technologies, and to get more people involved in microbiome studies, according to the fact sheet.

The microbiome can refer to any community of microorganisms living in a particular environment, although perhaps the best known — and best studied — is the human gut microbiome.

Those bugs that live in the digestive tract (along with others found on skin, inside mouths, and elsewhere in and on us) play a big role in maintaining health and immunity, as well as contributing to chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma.